Where the shadows lie

Not Icelandic as in Icelandic author, but it was set in Iceland. Which is an interesting take for a non-native author, considering the whole Nordic Crime Fiction genre's popularity. This book by Michael Ridpath is well done and great for fans of Arnaldur Indridason or Yrsa Sigurdardottir's Icelandic crime series, and for fans who dig the setting. This is the first in his "Fire and Ice" series about detective Magnus Jonson.

In "Where The Shadows Lie" we have a Boston Homicide detective (and native Icelander) who's being hunted down by a local gang for ratting on a fellow officer. To get him into hiding, he is sent to Reykjavik, Iceland to help the local police force solve a rare murder in Iceland. He gets wrapped up the a rather interesting case. The case involved a lost Icelandic Saga regarding Andvari's Ring. Interestingly, the author adds a bit of fiction and connects the lost saga to the Lord of The Rings by Tolkien- much to my delight. So you've got a family protecting a secret as their world unravels, a cop hiding from gangsters, and two LOTR fans trying to find the One Ring. It was pretty suspenseful and made for a fairly quick read.

It made for a very interesting book! Writing as an "outsider," the author adds plenty of information describing the way certain things are done in Iceland, so it was cool to have those bits woven into the novel.